OTTAWA — Prop comedy. Such a simple concept, so rarely incorporated in the NHL's Breakaway Challenge Skills Competition. Alex Ovechkin won the 2009 event in Montreal by donning sunglasses and a goofy hat. In 2012, two NHL superstars finally gave props to the skills competition again. [...] (vids at link)

On Sunday night, as some 49ers fans fired off death threats to Kyle Williams on Twitter, 7-year-old Owen Shure of Los Angeles began his own correspondence to San Francisco's wide receiver. Instead of anger, though, Owen's words were filled with empathy. "Dear Mr. Williams," the first-grader began writing through tear-filled eyes to the goat of the NFC Championship Game, "We just watched the Playoff game. I feel really bad for you but I wanted to tell you that you had a great season. you sould be very proud, so I wanted to say thank you." Those words were in stark...

Not long after North Carolina State lost to rival North Carolina for the 11th straight time on Thursday night, reporters asked junior forward Scott Wood how frustrating it was to have never beaten the Tar Heels. Wood's response was brilliant in its simplicity. "Has your wife ever cheated on you?" Wood deadpanned in response. Then after a few seconds of the most awkward silence imaginable, he responded, "that's probably how frustrating it is."

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- Dutch Rennert lives just a few miles from Vero Beach Sports Village, but he doesn't always stop in to watch the action. It's January, which means it's time for umpire school in these parts. And Rennert, who worked the bases and home plates of the National League from 1973-92, knows well that this is where it all begins. About 250 students have been donning chest protectors and masks to go with their dark shirts and gray pants on the fields of three umpire schools in Florida. At The Umpire School in Vero Beach, the Wendelstedt Umpire...

relatively new Georgia Board of Regents policy regulating the admission of undocumented students and illegal immigrants has prevented a football recruit from gaining admission to the University of Georgia. Chester Brown, a 6-foot-5, 340-pound offensive lineman from Hinesville, committed to the Bulldogs in July, but he confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and several other media outlets late Monday night that he was withdrawing his UGA commitment “for personal reasons,” declining to elaborate However, a variety of people with direct knowledge of the situation confirmed to the AJC on Tuesday that Brown’s change of heart was because his admissions application to...

Could the new Marlins ballpark or the Tampa Bay Rays' Tropicana Field serve as a homeless shelter for the 270 or so nights a year that they're not used for baseball? If two Florida lawmakers have their way, they might. As reported by the Miami Herald, state legislators have unearthed an obscure law that has not been enforced since it was adopted in 1988. It states that any ballpark or stadium that receives taxpayer money shall serve as a homeless shelter on the dates that it is not in use.

Here's an audit Florida's professional sports franchises may not have expected -- records of housing the homeless at their facilities over the years... and if the Florida Panthers haven't been housing the homeless, the team's on the hook for more than $30.8 million in tax breaks it's gotten since 1996. A recently released legislative analysis of State Sen. Mike Bennett's Senate Bill 816 notes that a law from the '80s requires sports franchises in Florida to house the homeless in its facility on off-nights, and in exchange, the teams get $166,667 from the state every month.

In the third period against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night, Detroit Red Wings star Henrik Zetterberg put a glove on the back of defenseman Nikita Nikitin as they raced for the puck. That was enough to knock Nikitin off-balance, as he crashed awkwardly into the end boards and writhed in pain on the ice. As a result, Zetterberg was given a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct. According to NHL.com's stats history, it's the first major and ejection for Zetterberg in his 634 career games: [...] (Video and comments at link.)

Posted by Mike Florio on January 22, 2012, 7:47 PM EST Reuters Shortly before Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff did his best Gary Anderson impersonation (to the chagrin of Matt Birk), Ravens receiver Lee Evans had the ball in his hands, in the end zone. But Patriots defensive back Sterling Moore knocked the ball out of Evans’ hands, and the ruling on the field was that the would-be touchdown pass was incomplete. Though it wasn’t a scoring play, fewer than two minutes remained in the game. Thus, the decision (or not) to review the play was to be initiated by the...

“State [of Minnesota] not rushing to act on Vikings stadium,” fretted the January 13 headline of a column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. New Jersey billionaire Zygi Wilf, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, is seeking about $700 million in taxpayers’ money to build his team a new stadium in the state. The $700 million would be roughly split between state and local taxpayers. Members of one proposed site for the stadium have been especially disgruntled by Wilf’s request to take their money for his business. A group in Ramsey County, which includes the state capital of St. Paul, has collected...

An athletic club in southern Sweden has come under fire for a coach's use of sexually suggestive materials known as "Hot babes of the defence" to aid the training of a team of 14-year-old boys. The controversial materials employ defence strategies referred to as ”Petra”, ”Jennifer” and ”Sofia”, and were devised by the coach to show the players on a boy's floorball team within the Engelholms FBC athletic club how to play in various circumstances. The strategies go under the name ”Hot babes on defence” (Snygga brudar i försvaret), according to reporters at the publication Feministiskt Perspektiv (FP), who have...

FCC might end sports blackout ruleBy Brendan Sasso - 01/13/12 03:19 PM ET The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday issued a formal request for public comment on a proposal to end its sports blackout rule. The rule, first adopted in 1975, prohibits cable and satellite providers from carrying a sports event if the game is blacked out on local broadcast television stations. Dropping the rule would have the most effect on the National Football League, which requires broadcasters to black out games if the local team does not sell out the stadium. The rule is meant to encourage fans...

Breaking News - Roger Goodell has just announced that the Denver Broncos will only have ten men in the lineup in tomorrow’s playoff game with the New England Patriots. Goodell says that 43% of the public believes that God is helping Tebow. That being the case, Goodell has declared God as Denver’s eleventh player on the field. Not only is this shattering news just breaking, but NFL headquarters has released a transcript of the top level meeting between Goodell, Robert Kraft of the New England Patriots, and John Elway of the Denver Broncos. Transcript follows: Kraft: Look Roger, there is...

News from the Pacific Justice Institute Less than a week after California’s gay history mandate went into effect, a new pro-LGBT bill introduced last week promises to stir even more controversy. AB 266, sponsored by Assemblyman and comedian Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), would require schools to allow students to participate on sports teams according to their “gender identity,” not their biological sex. This is no joke. That means that a boy who claims that he identifies as female would have the right to try out for the girls’ basketball team, potentially taking away an opportunity from a girl who might...

Link only as per posting guidelines: USA Today Gist of article: Ratings for title game down 8 percent from last year; barely (by 0.3 percent) above all time low; all BCS games down 12 percent from last year

THE NFL ON CBS” COVERAGE OF DENVER’S DRAMATIC OVERTIME WIN OVER PITTSBURGH IN AFC WILD CARD GAME SCORES HIGHEST RATING IN 24 YEARS. Game Rates 25.9/43 in Metered Markets. THE NFL ON CBS’s broadcast of the AFC Wild Card game featuring the Tim Tebow-led Denver Broncos’ 29-23 overtime victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, Jan. 8 was the highest-rated Wild Card game in 24 years earning an average overnight household rating/share of 25.9/43, up 38% from last year’s 18.8/37 for Baltimore at Kansas City.

<p>“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”</p>
<p>Tim Tebow started sporting John 3:16 way back during his college career.</p>
<p>Yesterday Tim Tebow Tebow passed for 316 yards against the Steelers, completing 10 of 21 pass attempts —meaning he passed for 31.6 yards per completion.</p>

*snip* Tebow has an escalator of $250,000 in his contract for each playoff victory assuming he participated in at least 70 percent of Denver's plays during the requisite season, according to an NFL source. Being that he played 73 percent of Denver's plays this season, Tebow cashed in on a quarter-million salary escalator after his latest shocker -- an 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime Sunday to beat Pittsburgh 29-23 in the wild-card playoffs. The play, according to Twitter, spawned a record 9,420 tweets per second. Tebow could earn another $250,000 with another victory Saturday night at...

Well, the statistics are in and NFL football star Tim Tebow has yet one more sterling accomplishment--but this one is not about football. It's about his book, "Through My Eyes," about his Christian life story. With staggeringly high sales, Tim Tebow has become the #1 best-selling religious author in America for 2011. Tim explains how his dad told him early in life that becoming a star gives a person a platform for good or evil. He also taught Tim that success opens the door to all sorts of temptations. So Tim purposed in his heart to become a good role...